Roger Schmidt: "We were the better team"

POST-MATCH

In Roger Schmidt's view,the different offensive effectiveness of the two teams was decisive in the outcome of Benfica-Estoril (1-1; 4-5 p), the match of the League Cup semi-finals held this Wednesday , January 24, at the Estádio Municipal de Leiria. 

DECISIVE OFFENSIVE SUCCESS

"We're very disappointed. When you're in the semi-final, you want to get to the final and win the League Cup, and we played like a team that wanted to go to the final, but we have to accept it, that's football sometimes. Estoril are a very good team in transition, they have a lot of quick players, so it's always difficult to play against them, because they're compact, they wait for counter-attacks. They had a good moment to score a goal, but after that we controlled the game in a good way and were able to create a lot of great chances against a compact opposition block. They found a moment in the whole 90 minutes to score a goal, they had nothing else, we had 10 great chances. In the end, they scored a goal with one chance and we also scored a goal with 10 chances, that's the story of the game. There's only one reason why we didn't win today: we weren't effective enough. We missed a lot of great chances and that's why we had to go to penalties. Anything can happen there, so we have to accept it. There's no shame in losing to Estoril, especially when you play such good football. There's nothing to reproach the players for, they played a great game, we were the better team. Still, congratulations to Estoril, because they also did everything with a lot of courage, so I wish them all the best for the final."

STRATEGY

"When you try to stop a team that is always focused on counter-attacks, you have to be good in possession, you need a very good fixed defense and, if they find moments when they can counter-attack, you also have to be ready to defend these moments with accelerations backwards, and that's what we did. I think in the end they had a few moments on the counter-attack, but there was only one moment when they could have created something dangerous. We defended every other moment, there were hardly any shots on goal, I think the goal was the only shot on goal. We were able to control everything, that's why I think the players did very well." 

FOCUS ON THREE FRONTS

"We have to grow with victories and success, and sometimes we can also grow with defeats, like today. For me, it's important how we're beaten. It wasn't like a team that wasn't ready for the game, that wasn't trying everything, that didn't play good football, that didn't create great chances. We did everything we could to win this game, we couldn't create any more chances, and we only conceded one shot on goal, so we could only have been better at scoring goals. It's part of football, we have to accept that sometimes this can happen, we're not the first team to have this story. In the coming weeks, we'll focus completely on the league, the Europa League and the Portuguese Cup."